New this year, the NC State Fair features a bronc-riding rodeo. What to expect
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- State Fair schedules two-night high school rodeo, with 75-100 participants per night.
- Nightly events include saddle bronc and bareback riding, bull riding and goat tying.
- Organizers aim to make the rodeo an annual event, improving it each year.
Set aside, for a moment, any excitement (or fear) that has come in anticipation of sampling the Flaming Hot Cheetos Pickle Pizza or the PB&J Frozen Banana at this year’s North Carolina State Fair.
The 80-plus new foods and drinks available at the annual event are not the only changes state fair attendees can experience this year.
The NC State Fair is hosting a new event this year — a rodeo.
Richard Isley, co-owner of Equine Event Planning, which handles the horse shows and events at the state fair, said he expects between 75 and 100 participants on each of the two nights of the rodeo.
The participants will be high school students, who are signing up through the North Carolina High School Rodeo Association. The News & Observer reached out to the rodeo association for comment.
“All kids don’t play soccer,” Isley told The News & Observer in a phone interview. “All kids don’t play baseball, T-ball, basketball. These kids, this is their sport.”
Each night of the rodeo, spectators will be able to see events such as saddle bronc riding, bareback riding, calf roping, team roping, bull riding, goat tying and breakaway roping, Isley said.
Isley had the idea to add a rodeo to the state fair event lineup when there was an opening in the schedule.
“It’s hard trying to find people to show horses through the beginning of the week,” Isley said. “So I had this opening come along, and I said, ‘Hey, let’s try to throw a rodeo in here and see what we can do.”
The rodeo is new to this year’s fair schedule, but it isn’t the first-ever rodeo at the annual fall event.
According to a 2023 article on NC State Fair history in Walter Magazine, the World’s Championship Rodeo performed nightly shows at the fair in 1955, “with more than 100 bulls and bucking broncos.”
A reader pointed out to The News & Observer that the fair hosted a rodeo in 1964. We found a 1964 Raleigh Times news article about a fire at Char-Broiler Steaks at the fair, posted in Legeros Fire Blog in 2016, that mentions: “The man who discovered the fire and helped to get the customers out of the restaurant was later identified as Charles “Bunky” Boger, who is with the rodeo at the Fair.”
For this year’s rodeo, planning started around April, Isley said.
For the rodeo competitors, these events are their “Friday night lights,” Isley said. He hopes that people fill the stands of the Hunt Horse Complex and get a taste of the opportunities available to students who don’t participate in traditional school sports.
“Our goal is to try to get it to be a yearly thing and make it bigger and better,” Isley said.
How to see the rodeo at the NC State Fair
Spectators need separate tickets to see the rodeo. The event is not included in a general admission ticket to the state fair.
The rodeo will be held at 7 p.m. Monday, Oct. 20 and Tuesday, Oct. 21 in the Hunt Horse Complex, where visitors can also catch horse shows and horse pulls.
When is the NC State Fair?
The N.C. State Fair is scheduled for Thursday, Oct. 16 through Sunday, Oct. 26.
New attractions at the NC State Fair
Besides the rodeo, other new events at the fair include:
- A Wild West-style roping and knife-throwing show by Andy Rotz
- The Conjurer Fortune Machine, an interactive “Zoltar”-style fortune machine that dispenses cards with a fortune
- The return of Cast in Bronze, a carillon musical performance featuring a musical instrument with 35 cast bronze bells
This story was originally published October 13, 2025 at 6:00 AM with the headline "New this year, the NC State Fair features a bronc-riding rodeo. What to expect."
CORRECTION: This story has been updated to reflect previous instances of rodeos at the NC State Fair.
